Don't Grump It Up!

Hey there! We have had a busy two days at the hostel. Ibu Poppi did not come in both days. Someone in their family died and so she will be gone until at least Thursday. That makes it a bit crazy for me. And hot! I bet it has been awhile since you were hot and sweaty!?! Sophie was praying tonight for Grampo as he works at Grand Geneva putting up the Christmas lights. She prayed that he would not be too hot working outside all day. I don’t think that will be the problem! More like cold, huh, Dad?
Cale made up a story for me today. I wrote it down so that I would remember it.
It went something like this:

“I love you in the morning and if a mean guy shoots you dead.
I love you even when you’re mean, and I don’t like it when I see your finger. “ (He meant my pointer finger extended pointing at him when he does something wrong).
“I don’t love it when I have to go to bed.
I love it when I can watch movies.
I love you but I don’t like you when you grump it up.
Hi, Mom. I’m Cale.”
The End

I do that, too. What he said. I grump it up. Do you do that? I get upset about something or I am in a bad mood and I let it affect everything around me. The whole spaghetti concept. I am not a waffle. I don’t think we should shove our feelings down inside, but I do think that sometimes the things that upset me can be dealt with and then I can move on. Instead of stewing in them and making it a problem that messes up my whole day. I take a beautiful new day that God has given me and (like Cale says) “I grump it up.”
That does not sound like fun, now does it?
Here’s to an ungrumpy day-
Love you
Rachel

Lagoon

This Saturday we went to the beach called Amay.  It was not the trash beach that we went to last time.  In fact this is one of my favorite beaches.  It has a very large fresh water lagoon that flows into the ocean with a soft sandy bottom.  It is so nice to have fresh water to rinse off all the grime and sand of the ocean in.  The waves were quite large there and were knocking me over.  So without even trying I wound up with sand in my suit and thanks to my sunscreen, stuck on my face as well.  It became at times uncomfortable and so after a few dips in the lagoon I felt so refreshed and comfortable again.  You know, life can get grimy and gross at times.  All of our mess ups and mistakes can really make our lives a mess.  But God’s great forgiveness is even more refreshing than the lagoon.  He is there to help make everything clean again.  He will give us a fresh start each time.  I am not saying that we have a free chance to screw up as much as we want and then ask for forgiveness and do it again and again.  That is not the way to live the abundant Christian life.  What I am saying is, when you mess up, don’t walk around carrying that grime, feeling bad and kicking yourself for messing up.  Go to the lagoon.  Go to God.  He is waiting for you and me to make a fresh start.

Shirts

We see the funniest shirts here.  The T-shirt makers try real hard to make the shirts look American but they do not know English so the wording is always wrong.  Below is a picture of what I am talking about.  Also some pictures of Cale out and about Sentani.  We do have car carts in one store!  That makes us feel right at home-like shopping at Wal-Mart (O.k., Not really-the cleanliness level is nothing like Wal-Mart, or the smell…)

I just got back from watching Wyatt’s first soccer game.  He is now on a team and has practices twice a week and games every Friday.  His team won and he scored one of the goals tonight.  That was exciting!  Cale of course, was hanging out by the girls bench, flirting…

Sophie had a presentation today in her class on the rain forest.  That was a fun project.  She learned a lot of new things and it was especially interesting since we are living so close to the forests she was studying.

We are watching some extra kids this weekend while their parents are away, and taking the dorm to the beach tomorrow which means I have lots to do and need to say Good-bye.

Love you all

Rachel

Hey

Hello to you from way over here.  How are ya doin’?  I wanted to send you some pictures of our last few days.  The Senior class had some fundraisers on Saturday.  One of them was a slip-in-slide.  That was so much fun for Cale.  Also we have been having quite a bit of rain lately which always makes for great puddles (which Cale is attracted to like a bug to the light!). Also, if you look closely at the picture of the raindrop that Garth took you can see the reflection of a palm tree in the drop.  Isn’t God so super cool?

A picture of my Growing up too fast daughter Emma…She has started asking to borrow my clothes.  I knew this day would come, but not so fast!  Cale wanted to type you an email just like “Mommy does.”

We also had another dorm birthday this week.  One of the girls we have from Germany, Julia, turned 16.  So we celebrated with Apple pie, peach pie and jell-o cream bars. Yummy!  Hope your day is delicious!

Love you

Rachel

Slow Motion

Today was one of those days where I think I got out on the wrong side of the bed.  This morning I felt like I was doing stuff in slow motion.  It took me forever to get through everything before church.  Then after church I was trying to get lunch on the table for everyone and I spilled a whole pitcher of water.  Then I dropped my bowl of soup into the container of rice.  And now, while I was making dinner, I picked up a cookie sheet that I had JUST taken out of the oven (What was I thinking?) and I burned both of my hands!  The other day I was trying to plug in some bad Indonesian Christmas lights and I got shocked.  So I thought it was because of the way I was holding it… so after I recovered from the shock, I tried again and got shocked even worse-of course it was a 220v plug!  Maybe I killed some essential brain cells with those shocks and that is why I keep having trouble today…

Anyways, we had a nice long weekend.  The kids were all off school on Friday so we did something special and had pizza.  On Saturday, a bunch of the Westerners here got together and had a big Barang sale (Garage sale-except it was in the tennis courts.)  That is so fun for me.  I am such a sucker for books.  I bought a ton of books.  That is about all.  Oh, and a stethoscope.  I love medical stuff as well.  The girls have been taking turns listening to the kitties heartbeats. 

Well, we happily have internet again.  Yahoo!  Do you want more good news?  My wonderful Niece, Annie slept 7 hours last night!  What a good girl!  I was holding a baby today in church and said to Cale, “Cale, look what I found.”  And he said, “Is it ours now?”  Haha.    Babies are such a blessing.  I am sooo glad we have a new one in our family.

Time to go-

Love you all

Rachel

Today at the Hostel

Today was a big day for the hostel.  We finally got our new stove!  And come to find out, there are two new stoves.  The guy that bought them for us couldn’t get one big one so he bought one sort of large and one small.  That installation took all morning.  It will be so nice when it is finished.  One oven is Indonesian made so the manual was all in Indonesian.  But the other one said “Made in Italy.” And the manual did have some English in it.  So I have been trying to figure it all out so I can teach the dorm kids and the pembantus.  Cale has had a blast playing with the boxes.  I made him a fort and he loves it.

Also today, our internet got fixed.  YEAH!  It hasn’t been working for a few days.  It is such a strange feeling when I have no way to connect with the world.  I am so glad it is working again.

Tomorrow is the last volleyball Games of the season.  The kids are playing against the parents.  I was asked to play since some of the dorm kids are on the teams.  That should be interesting.

Time for bed.

Love you all

Rachel

Our Weekend

Our internet has been down lately.  Garth will take this email up to the computer lab to see if he can send it.  Just in case it works, I thought I would check in and see how you all have been doing.  I heard there was a little bit of snow coming down by you.  WOW!  That seems early.  The other day Sophie was supposed to draw a snowman and she couldn’t remember what one looked like so she drew a man laying on the ground with snow falling on him.

Let me tell you what has been going on in our neck of the woods-

Thursday-Volleyball tournaments started.  Garth had to do a lot of refereeing and coaching.

Friday-We attended a Ballroom Dancing class put on by one of the missionary families.  That was really interesting.  I needed a taller partner,  I was trying to dance with Cale…haha.

Friday - Cale had his “school.”

Wyatt’s class had a performance.

Cale and I cooked up some pumpkins.  I let him scoop out all the seeds.  He thought it was so cool!  And then more volleyball.

Saturday- From 2:30 until 11 pm there were volleyball tournaments going on.  Talk about a long day for those kids!  But they did great-none of our teams won in the final round, but they played really well together and were much improved.  The Indonesian rules for volleyball allow the players to use their feet.  Many of them play barefoot and all of them use their feet to kick the ball up when it is too low to reach with their hands.  It is very amusing to watch.

Sunday- Was a nice relaxing day with not much going on.  It was perfect after a long late weekend.  I made taco salad using my sister-in-law Brenda’s recipe.  (The kids all say “Thanks you” for the recipe – they LOVED the salad).  Of course I had to make a few adjustments since there are certain things we can’t get here but it was delish!

Everybody hug Wyatt!

That is the end of the page so I must say Good-bye.  Hope you are all well.

Love you-Rachel